‘Oh, suck my fucking dick, Joanna,’ she yelled.
I had nowhere to go. I stood there in my cold humiliation, beneath those great trees. I was behaving like a child. Time to go home.
We didn’t speak for a few minutes. I got into the car first, and she stood out in the snow. She f lung out an arm, started to say something, but she thought better of it. She slid in next to me. Her nose was dripping. We started home.
‘Did you know the girl?’ she said at last, carefully.
‘No.’
She had the heat up too high. It was making me feel sick. I watched the sky. It was a strange moon. Not full, but low in the sky, contralto moon. Electric white. In Mexico they’d brought coffee and medialunas to our room in a basket each morning. In Peru we’d hiked to the moon temple, el templo de la luna, and the man at the visitors centre had tried to tell us about how it was a place of fertility. He’d talked about moons and tides. He’d said, Luna como lunática. Luna como las mujeres. I didn’t know why I was remembering any of that now.
‘You know, the school would have services—like, external services—someone other than the guidance counsellor you could talk to, if you wanted. Babe.’ She didn’t take her eyes off the road.
‘Do you remember in Peru when we went to the moon temple and that old guy at the visitors centre was trying to tell us about the tides? And he was so patient with our shitty Spanish?’ I said.
‘And we had to take off our shoes to go inside it.’
We were passing the Tenaya Lodge. ‘Lux, could you—could you pull in here a second?’
‘What?’
‘Pull into the lot.’
We got out and stood on either side of the car.
‘What the hell’s the matter with you tonight?’ she said. I wanted to look at the moon. I wanted to not be in the car with her any more, but I didn’t tell her that. The holiday lights were still up on the lodge. She lit a cigarette, handed it to me. She lit one for herself.
‘My ass is numb,’ she said. She sat on the hood of the car. She took me in her arms. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry,’ she said in my hair.
I couldn’t finish my cigarette. I threw it into the snow. ‘You still want to leave here?’ I asked.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Several of the stories in this collection were originally published in Australian literary journals and magazines, including Overland, Kill Your Darlings, Australian Book Review and Sleepers Almanac. I’m overwhelmingly thankful to these publications, as well as countless others, which support and encourage short fiction—my favourite form, I think, but one not widely read in Australia. Thank you for making a space for it.
A few of these stories were conceived or written while I was undertaking a residency at Can Serrat in El Bruc, Catalonia, in 2015. The time I spent at there was the most productive and intensive period of my career to date. Montserrat truly did feel like a magic mountain to me, and I’m eternally grateful. Moltes gràcies.
I’m also indebted to the Wheeler Centre’s Hot Desk Fellowship, of which I was a recipient in 2014, and to the Vermont Studio Center, where I spent my residency redrafting, among others, the title story, in 2016. Both of these fellowships provided me with critical time, space and support to write.
Thank you, Tom Fairman, for helping me understand what constitutes the day-to-day of a forest scientist back in 2013. You somehow knew precisely the kind of detail I was after. Thank you, Robert Cohen, for suggesting the tweak that fixed ‘Pulse Points’. It seemed like a small thing, but I’m very appreciative of your sharp eye and generosity as a reader.
Thank you, Danielle Dominguez, Sarah Craig and Amy NichollsDiver, for being the best colleagues and always encouraging me to keep working at my other job when I left the office.
Thank you, Melissa Manning, Thomas Minogue, Yasmine Sullivan and Kieran Stevenson, for your skill as writers and readers; your humour; your kindness. When I think of my tentative drafts, I always remember sitting around Yas’s kitchen table and one of you going, Oh, trees and a dog and a sad bloke with a floppy dick—Carrie’d love it—and I knew, then, that the story might have legs after all.
Thank you, Laura Stortenbeker and Bec Varcoe, for keeping me sane in this weird writing world. I’m always in awe of both of you—your writing, your warmth, your patience—but most importantly, you both make me laugh in an ugly way (mostly over stuff at which I would otherwise despair) every single day.
I still can’t believe how fortunate I am to work with Text. My gratitude in particular to Elena Gomez, for her poet’s ear and deft editorial hand, and to Alaina Gougoulis, for seeing the shape of things. It’s a privilege to entrust one’s work to such wonderful editors. Thanks, too, to Imogen Stubbs for the beautiful cover, and to Michael Heyward for championing my work.
Finally, a reservoir of gratitude and love for Tasha, Kathleen, Bianca, Claire, Jasna, Steph, Lucas, Jonathan, Bridget and Liadan. Thanks (or double thanks) to Tasha, Jasna, Jonathan and Aya for being dream cohabitants.
Thank you, family. Sophie and Lilly, I’m supposed to be older but I’m forever looking up to your compassion, wit and thoughtfulness. Thank you, Mama and Dad, for cheering us all on, no matter what we do. Thanks for reading to me. Thanks for tuning me to the frequency of other people’s lives.
Jennifer Down was born in 1990. She has been published widely, including in the Age, Saturday Paper, Lifted Brow, Best Australian Stories and Blue Mesa Review.
Jennifer’s stories have won several prizes, including the 2014 Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Award and the 2015 Lord Mayor’s Creative Writing Award. Her debut novel, Our Magic Hour, was highly commended in the 2017 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and shortlisted in the 2017 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. She was a Sydney Morning Herald Young Novelist of the Year in 2017. jenniferdown.com
PRAISE FOR JENNIFER DOWN AND OUR MAGIC HOUR
Highly Commended, 2017 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction
Shortlisted, 2017 NSW Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction Shortlisted, 2014 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript
2016 Staff Pick, Kill Your Darlings
Books to Look Out For in December 2016, A Life In Books
‘All the rapture and calamity of youth. Jennifer Down is a writer of rare insight and heart.’ Carrie Tiffany
‘Down’s evocation of Audrey’s grief is astute, perceptive and always convincing…It’s compelling writing.’ Australian
‘A gritty, evocative story…Unconventional and intimate, Our Magic Hour is a must-read.’ Canberra Weekly
‘A vivid portrait of our city and its inhabitants.’ Weekly Review
‘An impressive and emotionally sophisticated novel.’
Australian Book Review
‘Down’s novel is a story about very small things, that all add up to very big things about grief and friendship, love and death… Down has an impressive feel for the drama of the ordinary.’
Sydney Morning Herald
‘Down has a reserved but beautiful prose…In its maturity and elegance, Our Magic Hour is a surprising and captivating debut novel. I have no doubt that Down will produce more quality writing in the future.’
Farrago
‘Striking, breathlessly written…Down’s clear and confident voice can play originally with language…An eloquent debut.’ WA Today
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Copyright © Jennifer Down 2017
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First published in 2017 by The Text Publishing Company
Cover and page design by Imogen Stubbs
Cover artwork by Luci Everett
Typeset by J&M Typesetting
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Creator: Down, Jennifer, author.
Title: Pulse Points / by Jennifer Down.
ISBN: 9781925355970 (paperback)
ISBN: 9781925410341 (ebook)
Subjects: Australian fiction. Short stories.
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